


Freak In The Sheets

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-04 11:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16345757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: A few months after Sam is back on the road with his brother, he takes up a new hobby that leads to some surprises for Dean. Basically this is an unexpected yet inevitable love story told in embroidered souvenir patches.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters, only my words. Inspired by an embroidered patch I saw on tumblr. Written for the 2018 wincest-bigbang.
> 
>  
> 
> Check out the [art master post here](http://princeofpoppies.tumblr.com/post/179213513421/heres-my-art-to-go-with)

After they’ve been back on the road together for a couple months, Sam starts up a new habit. At nearly every convenience store or small town shop they stop at he buys an embroidered patch. At first he stores them in a used Altoids tin in the glove box. It rattles around a bit until he wraps an old Arizona map around the scratched metal tin. Dean watches this whole process but doesn’t say a word, figuring everybody has to cope somehow.

Dean’s forgotten about the patches as a new thing in his brother’s life until they begin appearing in a neat row along the top of Sam’s canvas duffel bag. Presumably hand-stitched on by his brother at some point. Thing is, he hasn’t seen Sam with a needle and thread, except for the five stitches Sam had to give him a month ago. They were neatly done, he’d obviously kept in practice somehow while he was at school. Lucky for Dean, that meant he didn’t end up with too much of a scar when it was done healing. 

Unless…maybe Sam’s stapled or taped the patches on. He gets up from his comfortable position, sprawled on his bed with a beer in one hand and a bag of salty-sweet kettle corn in the other. He examines Sam’s duffel sitting on the foot of Sam’s neatly made bed. Yeah, each patch is stitched very securely on, the  stitches are nearly invisible. No half-assed tape or staples were involved. Just his brother’s usual patient attention to detail, or his tendency to obsess and micro-focus. All in how you think about it. And why is he thinking about it? It’s just some damn patches. That are pretty ugly now that he’s looking at them.

He hears the shower cut off, so that means he has enough time to get back into sprawl position and pretend like there’s nothing new under the sun that is a guaranteed big-brother tease opportunity sitting on the end on Sam’s bed like a ticking time bomb. Dean mentally rubs his hands together and chuckles evilly under his breath.

“What are you chuckling about? Don’t tell me you’re laughing at this, it’s just a documentary I thought would be interesting so I started watching it,” Sam says, shrugging back into the hoodie he practically lives in now. Dean watches as he pulls on boxers and sweats, trying not to, but failing as usual to note just how much his brother has grown up during their separation. Then he snaps out of it when Sam, flips his wet hair around so that the droplets spatter over the coverlet and the back of Dean’s hand.

Dean glances at the screen, because he’s forgotten what had been playing. The baby hippo is still struggling to get out of the mud puddle. “I didn’t know you were into hippos is all, Sam.”

Instead of taking the tease opportunity, Dean doesn’t say anything about the patches filing up the blank space on his brother’s duffel. He figures a guy’s gotta have some hobbies, right? And as a hobby, this seems pretty harmless, no secret college applications are being written at least, or so he hopes. He tries not to think about their money situation, as he’s the bread-winner pretty much for their little operation. Sam asks for cash now and then, not like it’s an allowance or anything, but it is in a weird kind of way. But, then he starts asking Dean for a little more money every week, those patches are usually three or four bucks a pop, depending on how big they are. But that starts adding up when you’re getting one or more a week when they’re crisscrossing the country at the pace they’re keeping. So many days on the road together now, it’s all a big confusing blur. 

Dean has this feeling like he shouldn’t acknowledge the patches or make a big hairy deal about Sam’s new hobby. Even though he could, he doesn’t push because he can tell without having to ask—at least he thinks he still knows Sam this well—that the patches mean a lot more than just some scrapbook, wish-you-were-here postcard saving kind of thing. 

Whenever Sam’s not around and he gets the chance, he looks at the patches more carefully, the order they’re sewn on seems to be sequential, all of the places they’ve been together all in a row. That’s the only pattern he can discern. Some of them are quite ugly, or even quaint or downright rude, just like the towns they buzz through, stopping only long enough to fuel up, pool shark, or kill something that needs killing. 

Dean’s never felt the need to remember exactly where they’ve gone, he has dad’s journal to write down the information they actually use about the baddies they take out. That’s all that counts to him as far as keeping track of things. But Sam…Sam’s always been different that way, what counts to him is—well Dean doesn’t really know that now does he? His brother’s gone and changed while they were apart, Dean feels like he’s re-learning a language he’d recently forgotten. 

Back when they were kids he could have told you that this was Sam shopping for a home town, one that was the right size and shape that would fit him, that he could stay in and never have to leave except on an annual two week vacation with his wife and two point five kids. Now though, he doesn’t know what Sam’s got in mind for a happy ending, if it’s changed or not. Because they haven’t talked about it. Not until they do, right after Cassie, and it’s kind of blowing his mind because Sam had asked him straight out and he’d answered by saying nothing but knowing Sam had gotten it, because he’d smiled, oh god how Sam had smiled for miles and miles driving along, Dean watching him from behind those sunglasses. That secret smile, the one that Sam only smiled when he thought no one was looking.

It isn’t until Sam’s got both sides of his duffel covered, the sides standing up stiff and inflexible, almost like an actual suitcase that it becomes an issue for Dean. The thing doesn’t fit in the place it usually resides in the Impala’s trunk. It’s like someone buying a chair that’s the wrong size and shape for a small apartment that you share. It just doesn’t work, it throws him off, and he can’t get the sawed-off to stay in the right place and ugh, the trunk lid comes down on his shoulders _again_ and just like that he’s done.

“You gotta stop with the patches, dude,” Dean says in a snarl.

Sam’s head whips up, his bangs flying away from his eyes in a corona backlit by the early morning sun. “What?” Sam asks, face going a beautiful shade of pink.

“Your bag doesn’t fit in here right anymore with all the damn patches,” Dean says, pushing at Sam’s patch covered duffel to try and get it to fit the designated space yet again. Sam catches the trunk lid before it hits Dean’s shoulders again.

“Sorry, I…uh, didn’t think—“ Sam cut himself off in mid-sentence. “No, fuck that. I’m not sorry, I’ll just get it out of your way.” He yanks the duffel out of the trunk, grabs his backpack off the passenger seat and turns on his heel, quickly walking away down the highway.

Dean doesn’t react at first, standing there holding the trunk lid open, his hand tightens, knuckles going white at the sense memory assaulting him. This is what it looks like when his brother leaves him for good. He’s seen this exact scene before, Sam striding off, duffel bag in one hand, backpack slung over one shoulder, head held high, stepping out into an unknown future that doesn’t include him. It’s happened more than once, and kind of recently and look how that had turned out.

He slams the trunk lid down into place and slides into the driver’s seat. Baby starts up with a satisfying roar and slides a bit in the gravel where the parking lot meets the highway. Sam’s already down the road at the edge of the horizon to the right. Dean points the car towards him, no choice, no thought about taking off in the other direction, he’s not ever leaving him in the dust again, no matter what the kid says or does.

He leans across to roll down the passenger side window just before he pulls up slow and easy, one side of his wheels off the edge of the pavement grinding through the gravel. 

“Hey, Sasquatch, ya need a ride somewhere?” Dean calls out the open window.

“No, not from you,” Sam answers with an ugly scowl. He stops in his tracks and turns his back on Dean, starting back down the road in the other direction.

Luckily there’s no traffic at this early hour so Dean flips a U-turn and matches Sam’s pace. Tires crunching through the gravel at the other side of the road. “Thought we had a case to get to, full moon and all that, right?”

“I’ll just meet you there,” Sam says, scowl still in place.

“Sammy, how are you gonna get there?” Dean asks.

“It’s Sam, and I’ll hitch, take a bus, I don’t know.”

Dean pulls over and shuts off the car. He doesn’t want to do this again and again. It’s gotta get solved one way or the other, he tells himself as he gets out of the car.

“I don’t want to just ditch you, I won’t do it again,” Dean says beginning to walk faster, try and get into step with Sam. “Not after what happened last time.”

“I’ll be all right on my own, see you in Des Moines, a couple days?” Sam says over his shoulder, lengthening his stride even more to keep ahead of Dean.

Dean hurries his steps up to get in front of Sam, walking backwards so he can see him. “No, Sam, it’s not all right. Not with me, can you just get your ass back in the car? I’m sorry I fucking said anything, I’ll make room in the trunk for it, okay?”

Sam stops his forward progress, doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes at first, like there’s something terribly interesting on the toes of his Puma’s. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine, off-limits discussion, I promise,” Dean says, putting both hands up in the hands-off position, trying to smile.

Sam briefly grimaces at him and starts back to the car. He shifts the bag up over his shoulder and Dean looks at it more closely. What he sees makes him wish he hadn’t just made that promise. Among all the touristy patches covering his brother’s duffel is one that stands out. It’s black and white with a grinning skull, with a sheet over its head, one bony hand pointing, around the edge of the patch are the words FREAK IN THE SHEETS. 

Huh, he hadn’t noticed that one before.

As they pile back in the car, Sam pointedly puts his bag in the back seat instead of trying to stuff it in the trunk.

“I’ll rearrange the trunk when we get there, okay?” Dean asks.

“Sure, whatever, let’s just go,” Sam says, settling into his usual resigned-to-being-stuck-in-the-car position. 

Dean turns on a local newish rock station as an unspoken apology and tunes out the emo moaning by thinking about that one patch. He’s heard that phrase before of course, ’lady in the streets, a freak in the sheets’. And in his vast experience it’s been pretty damn true, some of the craziest partners he’s ever had in bed were the primmest of librarians or the diner waitresses with their hair perfectly pinned up, no crazy makeup or tight clothes. No salacious lip-licking or flirting, but look out when you’re alone with them in the bedroom. 

But why does Sam even have this freak in the sheets patch, does it remind him of Jess, like it could be a memorial kind of thing? Or does Sam having this patch mean he’s the one that’s like that? Is his brother maybe not such a prude after all?

The next time they stop for gas, Dean sees a patch on the rack at the counter that makes him grin. He throws it on top of the pile of junk food and scoops it up into the bag. Sam’s sorting out the Starbursts from the Funyuns, with the usual bitching about Dean’s selection when all of a sudden the yammering stops. He’s holding the new patch in his hand, mouth kind of hanging open.

  
  
“Why’d you buy this?” Sam asks.

“It’s for your, you know…your bag,” Dean says, leaving the ‘duh’ unsaid.

“Thanks,” Sam says, clutching the patch tightly in one giant paw, fingertips going white.

“Don’t mention it,” Dean says, pressing down on the accelerator. “So…uh, how ‘bout you tell me how we’re maybe hunting werewolves for real this time.”

Sam seems to snap out of some trance that he’s surprised to find himself stuck in. Shuffles through his notes and starts talking Dean through the facts of the case they’ve pulled together. It all blends in with the road noise and Dean’s just unaccountably happy all of a sudden.

“Why are you smiling like that? It can’t just be about the possibility of werewolves?” Sam asks after a long moment of silence where Dean was trying not to notice he was being stared at.

Dean looks over at his brother there in the passenger seat, filling the space that Dean had always kept open for him, never hoping he’d come back to fill it. Never wanting Sam to give up his shot at normal for this, but here he is, fulfilling the wish that Dean had tried to keep a secret even from himself.

“Hell yeah I’m excited about werewolves! And...I’m just glad you’re here to hunt them with me is all,” Dean says, which is way more than he should ever say and not even a smidge of the whole truth.

Sam’s eyes go wide, obviously not expecting that honest of an answer. And how much does that suck, that Sam is used to never getting the straight truth from him? Maybe it’s finally time for some more of that.

“Don’t know if you can believe it or not, but I am too,” Sam says, quiet and  suddenly very fierce.

Now it’s Dean’s turn for surprise, not just at Sam’s words, but at the intensity the words were just said with by his brother. Sam really _really_ meant that, and Dean isn’t sure at first how to feel about this revelation. How could Sam be glad to be here with him, when it meant he wasn’t at school with his girl still alive? It didn’t make sense at first, maybe it was Sam trying to show him he was getting over his losses. Getting with the program even more than Dean had thought would be possible. 

Where had it been that Sam had said something similar pretty recently? Oh yeah, at that bus stop after the apple orchard case. He’d asked Sam why he’d changed his mind about staying with him. And Sam had said _‘You and me. We’re all that’s left. So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together.’_ Dean’s struck at the similarity, but that was more about the search for Dad and the demon, wasn’t it? This seems more like about them just…being together. And how in the world does that make any sense?

“How about you pick something for us to listen to,” Dean says, offering another opening to collaborate on this life they’re in together now. He can’t stop himself from hoping that it means that Sam isn’t just grimly resigned to sticking with him because there’s no other options. Because Sam could walk out anytime, go back to school, have that normal life. But he’s not, he hasn’t yet, it seems possible now that maybe he won’t. 

Sam digs in the box of cassette tapes, until he finds one of the few that Dean kept just because Sam had always liked it. He didn’t let himself listen to those while Sam was gone. And now that he’s back…maybe really back for good, hearing the first few notes of Springsteen’s “The Ties That Bind” almost but not quite bring a tear to his eye remembering the aching, gaping loneliness of those years without him. Is that what this is between them, just the ties that bind? It’s not just some family obligation bullshit to him though, it’s more than that, deeper. He never lets himself think about this stuff, usually hurts too much, but Sam’s here and it all seems possible somehow. 

The word freak keeps bouncing around in his head, how they’d both used it describe themselves recently, how it’d always been something Sam had worried about being. That’s what all the longing for normal was about, right? But his mind goes back to that one weird patch, being a Freak in the Sheets is something else all together. It’s hard to consider that possibility, that Sam would be anything than utterly vanilla in bed. Another thing he never lets himself think about, once he goes down that road it usually ends with him drunk in a bar at two A.M. trying to go home with whoever is still there. He doesn’t want that anymore, never really did, only did that to keep those thoughts at bay. 

So he stays in, every night that they’re on the werewolf case, which turned out to just be a werewolf-obsessed serial killer, and for a couple weeks afterwards. Sam keeps looking at him when dinner time rolls around, expectant then maybe a little worried that they keep getting takeout or spending time in diners, even steakhouses when the pool sharking is profitable. He’s soaking it up, the time with Sam, getting to know the man his brother has turned into. 

It’s different roaming around the countryside with a partner like this, he’d never imagined how good it could be. After all the conflict with Dad after Sam had left them, they’d each hunted solo more and more. Bobby sent him some cases to work on with other hunters, but he’d never clicked with anyone to take up with a permanent parter. Certainly working with another hunter was never as seamless and effortless as it is with Sam. They just fit.

After that first patch he gives Sam, Dean finds more, usually in the gun shops or biker bars they end up in, so they’re not tourist patches, but they all have little sayings that include the word freak. It’s kind of their thing isn’t  it?

Their little private motto for their team of two, they can call themselves Team Freak without even really discussing it. The patches make him smile, and he thinks that Sam might like them as well. Dean’s even happier when they start getting sewn onto Sam’s bag, all in their own row. And he notices that Sam’s stopped buying his own now, like he’s waiting for what Dean’s going to find next. It’s like a wordless conversation they’re having spread out over weeks that he doesn’t know where it’s going next. 

_Freak in the Sheets_ though, Sam couldn’t be bragging with that, right? Maybe it was a college thing with the kids or something. Who knows, maybe Jess had called him that as a pet name. Whatever it is, it might as well be a lost but still live WW2 mine floating in the sea of misunderstandings between them, and Dean isn’t touching it with the proverbial ten foot pole or anything shorter. Except that he is touching it, _(why is he touching it?)_ with his finger. 

Dean is pointing at the skeleton and the words and Sam is seeing him pointing at the patch in question. Dean tries to school his face into a big brother “really?!” face but it fails immediately. Sam sees through him, like he always does. But neither of them say anything and the moment passes. Dean thinks about it though afterwards, how Sam had just kind of smiled instead of explaining or reacting. That just adds to the questions Dean has about the thing.

This morning he left Sam behind in the motel, still sleeping off their unsuccessful attempt at killing the chupacabra pack outside of a small town in New Mexico. Dean’s buying them some breakfast burritos off a food truck when he realizes the thing is conveniently parked in front of a gun store. They’re almost completely out of ammo so he gets the food wrapped in an extra plastic bag and tucks it into his inside coat pocket to hopefully stay warm. 

The bell that jingles over the door is made of shell casings. His selection of ammo boxes stack up on the counter and the cashier dude is ringing him up, still wordless at this hour of the morning when Dean sees it. A stack of random patches in a grubby cardboard box and on top is the perfect one. Maybe…well it’s probably a risk, but he’s buying it before he can talk himself out of it. Who knows, it might help get his questions answered about the ‘freak in the sheets’ patch that started this whole thing.

He leaves it on the little table next to Sam’s burrito, and swats at his brother’s foot under the covers on the way to take a shower. “Time to get up, lazybones.”

He heads in to take a long overdue shower and is surprised when Sam comes in, ostensibly to pee, but then his brother starts talking. All of a sudden Dean is keenly aware that there’s only a slightly opaque sheet of plastic between them.

“I don’t know whether to bring this up or not, so I’m doing it when you can hear me and not see me. You don’t have to respond, you can pretend you can’t hear me over the shower. Whatever you need to do. But this patch you just gave me, you should know, it couldn’t be more accurate,” Sam says. 

Dean buries his head in the rush of the water, not able to allow himself to hear one more word (if there are any). If he does listen to more, then it would break the rule he’d set for himself all those years ago. It’s his own damn fault for buying that patch this morning, he knocks his head into the wall a little, still under the water, delaying, hoping that Sam’s not still talking. That he can convincingly pretend that he didn’t want to hear every damn word.


	2. Chapter 2

  
  
“This is one of the best breakfast burritos I’ve ever had,” Sam says when Dean finally braves the rest of the motel room.

“Yeah, they were really good, got them off of a food truck down by the gun shop.”

“You stock us up on ammo? I noticed we’re running low,” Sam says, asking without asking about where Dean had bought the patch in question.

“Yeah, I did, we’re restocked and ready to go,” Dean says, hesitates for a long beat where he vacillates between saying anything more or not. “That’s where I found that patch.”

“Figured,” Sam says, going an interesting shade of red, because he’s probably just confessed to some horribly kinky thing in the bathroom, and now he doesn’t know whether Dean even heard him or not.

Dean instantly feels bad that Sam’s unsure about this, he ought to rub it in, any good big brother would. But Sam’s so raw about anything personal still and he’d just tried to share something with him. “I didn’t…uh, didn’t listen when you were talking in there. I’ll be honest, I chickened out,” Dean says.

“Chickened out?” Sam asks, slow and confused.

“I mean, I wanted to hear what you had to say, but I was…wasn’t sure what it would be,” Dean says, not really saying what his main concern was. That Sam would be confessing to some kink that wasn’t wanting to fuck his own brother. Or that it was—either way, Dean wasn’t sure how he’d react.

“Do you want me to say it again?” Sam finally asks, in a low hesitant voice.

Dean looks over at his brother, curling over the remains of his breakfast, making himself small and he can’t have that, doesn’t want that, Sam needs to be himself, take up the space in the world he deserves and more. “Yeah, I do.”

Sam looks up at him with an almost hidden surprise, but then he smiles, the I’ve-got-a-secret smile that Dean has always loved. “I was just telling you that the new patch is more accurate than you probably have ever guessed about me.”

“And…?” Dean asks when Sam pauses for too long with that secret smile for him to take. 

“And, it’s because of precisely how I’m kinky,” Sam says, finally looking at him straight across the space between them, nothing hidden in his face now. Dean grabs at the bedspread underneath him to steady himself when he sees what’s on Sam’s face. It’s unbridled lust, desire and something even more, like some look of pure love out of a fucking rom-com. And he doesn’t know what to do with this, with what Sam’s sharing with him, with how it makes him feel: on the surface: _holy shit no no no_ and on the deep inside: _fucking finally mine mine mine_.

Sam sees that—oh god, he sees. And he also sees the war Dean’s having internally. He waits for Dean’s response, patient and already forgiving.

And Dean can’t say it, can’t put it into words, how much he wants Sam right back, how he always has and always will. He wants to…more than anything he wants to give it right back to Sam. But he just—can’t.

So he doesn’t say anything.

Instead he runs.

  
He’s about twenty miles out of town, and he’s turned off his cell because the text messages and voice mails keep pouring in one after the other. And he’s just going to delete them all anyway. How could he have done this to his brother? How could he have ruined _them_? Fucking predictable is what this is. Screwing everything up while trying to keep things on an even keel between them. 

Tears are about to come and he won’t give in to them, he’s not doing that again to himself. Four solid years of crying was enough, thanks. He shakes his head and the road comes back into focus, he’s lost sight of the fact that he is probably doing eighty on a two lane road. And that’s unfortunate because now there’s a pickup truck crossing both lanes, making a left to go back towards town. And he’s braking hard, veering off the road, into the gravel and then bouncing up and out of the drainage ditch back onto the blacktop, spinning several times and finally coming to a stop. 

The car’s still running, apparently he didn’t hit the truck, because it’s long gone down the road. And now he’s pointed back that way too, back towards Sam. The expected thing for him to do would be to u-turn it and keep going.  To keep running. And today is not that day. Not after that sweet peek he was just gifted with, that all too short view into what Sam’s been keeping hidden too. 

Freaks together forever, it’s their family-of-two motto, right?

  
  
Dean steps on the accelerator, the car leaps forward, he quickly catches up to and passes the slow-moving pickup truck, ignores the shaking fist and middle finger of the truck driver and eventually fishtails his way back into the motel parking lot. Sam’s right where he left him, still in the chair at the small table. The breakfast burrito wrapper is balled up and next to the wastebasket across the room. 

The only thing that’s different that he cares about in this room is Sam’s face, that look, the one that had made Dean run isn’t there anymore. It’s been replaced with this bland accepting look that makes him want to scream. Sam shouldn’t have to put up with this, take this, from anyone, especially not from him.

“I shouldn’t have left like that, it was a dick move, and I’m sorry,” Dean says, shutting the heat and light out with the door closing.

Sam doesn’t say anything, the bland accepting look doesn’t change, even when he blinks slowly like he’s trying to keep things unfocused.

“Sammy, c’mon, look at me,” Dean says, stepping closer to his brother, the toes of their shoes almost touching. He struggles to pull down all the barriers and walls and let his brother see inside of him again. It’s harder than it should be, because everything is on the line here, the only thing he’s ever wanted is for Sam to be happy. And the chance that his brother bravely took earlier is enough proof, it’s got to be.

Sam’s eyes travel up from the unfocused middle distance, up Dean’s torso, past his hands clenching together holding back from reaching out between them, up to the flush and red that he can feel on his chest, his neck his face and Sam is finally seeing it for real this time. It’s like the sun dawning again across his brother’s beautiful face. Seeing the same thing reflected back is what it takes to blow that bland accepting look off Sam’s face hopefully for good. Dean doesn’t ever want to see that again.

“Really?” Sam asks in this little-boy wondering voice that winds its way down into Dean’s core, it goes down inside him, shockingly deep. That one word cracking him open, wide open, and Dean answers with a smile. One that Dean hasn’t ever shown another living person. Never had a reason to.

Sam has his answer and he reaches up with those long arms of his and pulls Dean down to straddle his lap. They’re hugging and touching and Sam’s mouth is everywhere, his lips trailing traces of small kisses along Dean’s neck, the side of his face. Dean’s doing it too, his heartbeat gone wild with joy at the exhilaration of this truth finally being sung out loud.

Their lips finally find their way to each other and Dean’s never felt anything like this. It’s not like kissing himself, or anything weird like that he’d imagined in his feverish teenage dreams, no it’s like kissing the part of himself he’s always been missing. It feels like welcome home, stay forever and never leave.

Sam’s standing up, somehow lifting him as he stands, a hot flush runs through Dean at the very idea, this feeling of being manhandled like he weighs nothing is so new and exhilarating. He can see why chicks dig it and nope, he’s not swooning or so he tells himself. But he is being laid out on the bed, and kissed within an inch of his life like one of those chicks in the rom-com movies he’s not-so-secretly addicted to watching. 

He shivers with the recognition of this feeling, of having one hundred percent of Sam Winchester’s attention, it’s been a while and it sure as hell was never like this. But…maybe it was now that he thinks about it.

“How long?” Dean manages to gasp as Sam’s working at getting Dean’s belt buckle undone.

Sam doesn’t pause, continues with removing Dean’s jeans and boxers. “Since I was eleven,” Sam says, leaning down to set his mouth to the point of Dean’s hipbone. Dean groans as Sam sucks and bites at the skin, feeling the beginnings of a spectacular hickey being pulled to the surface as evidence of his desire.

“Wait, hold on a second, eleven? Sammy, stop for a sec,” Dean says, desperate to shut his own mouth and let Sam do whatever wonderful thing he was planning to do with his mouth next but damn, this isn’t—it can’t just be this easy, right? It’s too important to assume they’re on the same page here.

“In all the scenarios I dreamed up for this situation, you wanting to talk it all out first never figured into a single one of them. Are you serious right now?” Sam asks, sitting back on his heels, hair in a beautiful disarray, his hands never leaving contact with Dean’s hipbones.

“So I surprised you for once, get over it already,” Dean says, covering Sam’s hands with his own.

“How about you then, how long?” Sam asks, lifting his chin a little like it’s a normal challenge between two normal brothers instead of the two freaks they truly are.

“When I first started driving, so…uh fourteen I guess,” Dean admits, lifting his own chin a little in response to Sam’s challenge.

Sam smirks down at him for a long moment and then his chin comes down, the challenge now over. “I’m not going to ask why you never said anything, probably the same reason I never did. Instead, I’ll ask, how did you know?”

Dean looks up at him, his little brother, this grown man he loves more than should be possible, how can he even start to explain it? He grounds himself by squeezing Sam’s hands that are still on his hips. “It was the way I felt, when I would be driving back to you, back to whatever dive we were calling home. That everything would be right again when you’d wrap your arms around my waist and bury your head in my chest.”

Sam looks down at him with eyes brimming over not with sad, salty tears but instead with hot scalding tears of love and joy, they spill over, roll down his cheeks and soak into Dean’s naked skin. He feels baptized in this union they are about to begin. Already joined by blood, both shared and spilled, wiped up, spat out and stitched back together. Now the tears wash that residue of violence away, clearing away the doubt Dean had before about being this honest. Sam’s not only on the same page, he’s been here waiting for Dean to catch up for a long time.

“How about you?” Dean asks after they’re done kissing the tears from each other’s faces clean. “How did you know back then?”

Sam puts his hand on Dean’s chest, over their shared tattoo, over his heart still beating double time in the excitement of this moment. “It started with figuring out my jealousy issue, I used to get so upset about anyone else having your attention, your focus, you know?”

“Oh yeah, I remember,” Dean chuckles, recalling a tiny angry Sam pummeling him with accusations when he’d spend too much time talking to girls after school, how it had gotten exponentially worse when he’d started dating them.

“Well, I tried to not be jealous, and I couldn’t. I asked Bobby about it one time, he helped me figure it out,” Sam says.

Dean starts to sit up, alarmed at the idea of Bobby knowing.

“I don’t think he knew I was talking about you. I mean, maybe he did, but he didn’t seem to care. He said to fill my time with something else, something besides the person I was obsessing about. So I concentrated on school,” Sam says, pressing Dean back into the bed.

Dean lets himself be subdued, for the moment. “And look where that got you, a full-ride to Stanford,” Dean says proudly, finally feeling like he’d had a hand in his brother’s success.

“Wait, are you just realizing this? I mean, you had to know,” Sam says.

“No, too busy lying to myself, trying to play the part I was supposed to,” Dean says.

“What about now?” Sam says.

  
“Right now, I’m playing the part I want to,” Dean says.

“And what part is that?” Sam asks.

Dean growls a little at Sam’s little brother presumption, always putting the hard task on him. Fine—whatever, he’ll do it. He’s got to be the leader in this relationship shit too, it can be Sam’s turn next time. “Freak Brother,” Dean says.

“Me too,” Sam says. “Now can I get back to where I was? I mean, if you’re done investigating the origins of our freakishness.”

  
Dean rolls his eyes and pushes Sam back into place. Sam’s first order of business is to bite and suck his other hipbone until he’s got a matching mark. The whole time he’s keeping his eyes locked with Dean’s, and Dean feels like a snake that’s had its own scales charmed right off. He’s mesmerized by this version of Sam that he’s never seen. The teasing licks and bites all around his groin but never on his cock make it jump and strain towards Sam’s mouth. Dean feels himself flush with embarrassment at how needy he is for this. He’s trying not to beg, but sees that look on Sam’s face again and knows it’s pointless to resist.

“Please, Sammy,” Dean says, voice strained to breaking on the name he’d never thought he’d use in this scenario.

Sam shivers with some reaction to Dean’s words, maybe it’s hearing Dean beg, maybe it’s hearing his name said like that, Dean doesn’t know or care now because Sam is stretching his mouth wide and engulfing him, taking him inside, deep and hot and wet, one of his big hands gripping him tightly and jacking him in time with the bobs of his head. 

It’s all too much, and Dean hasn’t had head as good as this…ever, and that’s saying something, and it’s probably because it’s Sam doing it to him, and oh god, just thinking that thought, ‘Sam, _his_ Sammy,' puts him over the edge, and he’s coming down Sam’s throat before he can even warn him. Sam struggles to take it all, swallows most of it, but some strands leak out both sides of his mouth. It’s the hottest fucking thing Dean’s ever seen. 

He reaches a shaky hand out to gently wipe it away and Sam chases the hand, licking the come off his fingers, teasing the pads with the point of his tongue. Dean groans at the feeling, it seems like it’s Sam licking his cock all over again, like his fingers are hooked up somehow. Sam licks his lips and smiles this smug satisfied grin that Dean wants to taste. 

He pulls Sam back up even with him, and kisses the taste of himself clean out of Sam’s mouth. The hardness he feels digging into his belly is Sam, who hasn’t come yet…that’s what he wants. He flips Sam over in one of the judo moves that Sam’s recently taught him. The surprise on Sam’s face quickly turns into desire, as Dean looms over him. 

“Want to taste you too, Sammy,” Dean says, kissing his way down Sam’s chest, he lingers over the hard planes of Sam’s stomach, all the muscles chiseled and tight with anticipation. He sucks and bites his own mark over the point of one of Sam’s hip bones. The way Sam wriggles and writhes under him makes him think he’s going to come untouched.

“You gonna come just like this?” Dean asks in a purr just above the head of Sam’s cock.

Sam’s hands land on the top of his head pressing him down that last little bit and then he’s kissing the tip of Sam’s beautiful cock, the softness of the skin is amazing, there’s nothing else like it, even softer than Sam’s lips. He suckles and licks gently and Sam’s hips start thrusting up and he’s got most of Sam’s cock in his mouth, he hasn’t even gotten to start sucking when Sam comes. Dean jerks back in surprise and most of it lands on his lips, a bit on his cheek. He licks his lips, eyes never leaving Sam’s, and savors the flavor of his brother’s come. It’s different from his own, he loves the combination of the taste of both of them that he has in his mouth.

“We taste so good together,” Dean says, crawling back up Sam to show him, to give it to him. Sam arches up, still quaking with the last of his release and Dean feels the wetness between them, their cocks rubbing through the mess. He licks across Sam’s lips and then kisses him deeply, sharing their mingled flavors, savoring the groans that Sam fills his mouth with. 

Dean feels the post-orgasm wall of sleep coming at him fast, so he wipes them clean with Sam’s t-shirt and rolls off Sam to the side. He falls asleep with his head over Sam’s heart, the slowing beat calming with its familiarity. 

He’s in the bathroom cleaning up, Sam is asleep in their bed with a satisfied smile on his face, when Dean takes time to look at himself in the mirror. The person looking back at him is nearly unrecognizable. Happy, sated, all those things. That small phrase he had just used in his mind, _their bed_ , makes him smile at himself. He’s so immersed in this new feeling of happiness he doesn’t hear the footsteps until the last second when hands and then arms are wrapping him up from behind.

Sam buries his face in the back of Dean’s neck and breathes him in, then gently nips at the skin below his hairline. “You in here making eyes at yourself?”

“Gotta practice my bedroom eyes routine,” Dean says, leaning back into Sam’s warm body, closing his eyes halfway. He gasps when he sees how hot they look together in the mirror like this.

Sam’s hands tighten at the sound of his gasp and he looks up, meeting Dean’s eyes in the mirror. “What is it? You okay?”

Dean grins slow and sultry, “Just fucking look at us, Sammy.” He watches Sam’s eyes take them in, the full picture, his chest and neck covered in mouth-shaped bruises, his lips full and red, body relaxed against Sam.

A low whistle in his ear is the answer Sam gives him. 

“What, no I told you so’s?” Dean asks with a chuckle.

“Nope, not from me, it took real courage for you to come back, to do this, don’t you think I’ll ever forget it,” Sam says, look gone from sultry to serious in a heartbeat.

Dean nods, acknowledging Sam’s gratefulness. “And to think it all started with that Freak in the Sheets patch.”

“When I put it on there, I just thought it was funny, sure didn’t plan for all this to happen.”

“Are you ever going to tell me what the deal was with the patches in the first place?” Dean asks, curiosity finally getting the better of him. Maybe he’ll get an answer now that everything’s changed. He watches the amusement flicker across his brother’s face in his reflection.

“At first I just wanted a way to remember the journey, make it more real,” Sam says. “And then I kept doing it once I noticed you’d noticed, I was curious what you would do.”

“Such a little brother thing to do,” Dean says, turning around in Sam’s arms.

“Well, I still am one, you know,” Sam says, standing up extra-extra-tall so Dean has to go on tiptoes to reach his lips.

“You’re a freaking Sasquatch is what you are,” Dean says with a growl, doing the tiptoe thing because he needs that feeling of Sam’s lips on his again. 

Sam holds him up, cupping him under his ass, tight against his body. Dean takes a chance and wraps his legs around Sam’s hips. Sam staggers under his weight for a second but then hoists him up a bit. They settle together and Dean is suddenly no longer caring that Sam is the biggest little brother maybe in the continental USA. 

The End

****  
  



End file.
